Beijing subway security checks hard to swallow

Workers in some subway stations in Olympic host city Beijing have started asking passengers carrying bottled drinks to take a swig to prove they are not carrying banned liquids like petrol, local media reported on Friday (local time).

China last year said terrorist attacks posed the biggest threat to the Games and has intensified security measures at airports, train and subway stations after the Government said a flight crew foiled an attempt to blow up a plane over the country's restive north-west region of Xinjiang in March.

Subway workers were asking passengers to take a drink if "security equipment was unable to detect the content of the fluids in their bottles", the Beijing News said.

The city has already introduced x-ray machines and sniffer dogs at subway stations to scan commuters' luggage.

Passengers would have to face security checks by machines, dogs or police officers at all subway stations as from the end of June, Xinhua news agency said.

"It should be this way. If people with ulterior motives wear perfume and carry bottled petrol, then the security machines may not be able to detect them," the paper quoted a commuter as saying.

Other commuters were less supportive.

"In summer, there will be a lot of people carrying bottled water, but there are already so many subway commuters... if you make every person carrying a drink take a sip, it will just be chaotic," the paper quoted an unnamed woman as saying.

China, whose Communist rulers value stability above all else, has come down hard on anyone its fears could upset the Games, from people protesting against the demolition of their houses for venues to the country's sometimes restless ethnic minorities.

The Government has also begun restricting visas, a policy which has come under fire from business groups.

Beijing's subway is one of the busiest in the world, carrying a record 2.89 million passengers on November 16 last year.

Authorities have been scrambling to build additional lines in anticipation of an extra 2.5 million visitors during the August Games.

The city's already strained network will have also have to cope with increased demand from the hundreds of thousands of residents and workers who will be asked to leave their cars home during the Games period.

Authorities will ban cars with odd and even-numbered licence plates on alternate days before the Games to relieve congestion on the city's notoriously snarled roads, and improve air quality.